Volume 2

A student's text-book of zoology / by Adam Sedgwick.

  • Sedgwick, Adam, 1854-1913.
Date:
1898-1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A student's text-book of zoology / by Adam Sedgwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/730 page 8
    this great question may be attacked. One of these is by the method of experiment—a method which is being pursued with increasing vigour by more than one school of Biologists ; the other is the careful and thorough exam- ination of living and extinct organisms, particularly in their relations to one another. It is the second of these methods which comes under our notice in the three volumes of the first part of this work dealing with systematic zoology. It is unquestionable that this study does shed light, if only a dim light, on the course of organic evolution and indirectly on the origin of the properties of living matter, and it is most important that the light so obtained should be brought to bear upon the problem. To discover this we must approach the subject with unbiassed minds, for it is one of immense complexity and it is extremely unlikely that any particular solution which commends itself to us will turn out to be final. I would therefore ask for lenient judgment if in some pages of this work I have seemed to take up an unduly critical position with regard to views widely prevalent at the present time on some aspects of organic evolution. That does not mean that I am unsound on the great question itself, but only that I am sceptical as to the value of some hypotheses widely held as to the course of organic evolution. It is true that working h3q>otheses are necessary in constructive work, but in a subject of the complexity of the present one, they can only be provisional and as such are legitimately open to criticism. It may be urged that I have said too much or too little, that I ought not to have touched upon the matter unless I was prepared to state fully my own views. While allowing that there would be some justice in such a criticism, I do not admit its complete validity. In deference to it, how- ever, I have materially altered in proof what I had written in manuscript, but it was not possible to remove all refer- enee to the subject. It was necessary to note the facts in passing. In the final volume on the Principles of Zoology which I yet hope to write, I shall return to it and endeavour to justify, in the fuller treatment which will there be pos-
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3